


The Price

by WolfenM



Category: Stargate - All Series, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill Friendship, Episode Related, Episode Tag, F/M, Pre-Relationship, Redemption, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-22 04:26:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8272816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfenM/pseuds/WolfenM
Summary: What price will SG-1 pay to get the weapon they need to face the Ori?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written circa late 2006, tweaked slightly for this reposting. Inspired by the promo for the _SG-1_ episode "The Quest, Part 1", this isn't based on the ep (as it hadn't even aired yet as of this writing), but rather was inspired by the scenes shown in the promo and the question posed by the promo's narrator. I changed the Sangreal a bit cause a sword is more exciting and makes more sense, I think ....
> 
> Anyway, I figure it's about time I get my Stargate stuff posted over here; this is the first of many. :P
> 
> DISCLAIMER: Daniel Jackson, Vala Mal Doran, Jack O'Neill, Sam Carter, Teal'c, Cameron Mitchell, the Stargate, Merlin the Ascended Being, and the Ori ©/TM Stargate (II) Productions, Kawoosh Productions, The SCI FI Channel, Showtime/Viacom, Sony/MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, Gekko Productions.

They'd finally done it. They'd fought past another few sentinels — not just armoured knights, but a gryphon, a unicorn, and a dragon! They were battered and singed, but all of them — Teal'c, Carter, Mitchell, Daniel, Vala, and Jack, who had refused to be left out — had survived to stand here, before the holographic image of Merlin, and listen to him warn them about the last, unseen hurdle. Pass it, and the weapon that could kill Ascended beings would be theirs! Fail, and the trap would surely kill at least one of them — and anyone who _didn’t_ die by the trap would die _later_ , at the hands of Adria and the Ori, along with countless other "rebels".

"Only the hand of the dead can pass the torch to the living. What is _your_ death worth to you?" the spectre asked. He stood before a stone with a sword embedded in it, much like the legend of Excalibur. In the sword's pommel was a glowing red stone — the Sangreal.

"Shouldn’t he mean what is your _life_ worth?" Mitchell asked.

"And what torch?" Jack added. "Isn’t that _sword_ there the weapon that we're lookin' for?"

Vala's heart was hammering in her ears. Wasn't it obvious? Surly the Tau'ri couldn’t be that thick! Yet even Daniel seem puzzled, scowling in that way that was so endearing to her now. She'd miss that look. Perhaps it was a good thing that he hadn't figured it out; it gave her a chance to—

She didn’t wait another moment. Hopping lightly onto the dais, she wrapped her hands around the handle of the sword and pulled hard, concentrating on her fierce desire to make recompense and protect those she'd come to love.

It was her fault the Ori had learned of this galaxy, thanks to her thirst for treasure. And she could have killed Adria in the womb, but she hadn’t, and now her daughter was hell-bent on killing or enslaving everyone, _everywhere_.

 _What is your death worth to you?_ A life for a life. Her death for the death of the Ori. Her life for the lives of everyone in the galaxy. She could only hope her weak, tarnished soul was enough coin to buy the weapon for SG-1.

Pain flared in every nerve-ending as blue lightning shot through her, from the sword's hilt. At first, she thought she'd failed — she wasn't worthy. But as she fell back, she felt the sword slide free from its holder, heard the tip clatter against the floor beside her, long moments — they _seemed_ long — after her body hit the ground, though the handle was still clenched tight in her fingers.

No, not the ground. The ground couldn’t be so soft, could it?

She'd heard Daniel's cry start the moment she'd rushed the dais; she _still_ heard it, a drawn-out note that sounded slow and distorted. The sound had seemed a world away at first, but was right in her ear now, and she understood — it was _not_ the ground she rest against. Daniel had caught her in his arms.

The sound finally died on his lips, those perfectly-scuplted lips that swam into view, lips that could sling his anger sure as an arrow, or comfort with soft words and a gentle smile. They trembled now, in a grimace of shock and fear that she wished she had the strength to brush comfortingly away, but she couldn’t find the strength. A tear fell past his lips, and she traced its path with her eyes up to his own. Those soulful eyes, eyes that could pin you down one moment, sharp as daggers, and lift you up high the next, into a sky whose own blue paled in comparison to the blue in _those eyes_. She was glad that they would be the last thing she would ever see.

"Vala," he whispered, his voice choked. " _Why_...?"

And then she found it, the strength to lift her arm — not to touch his face, but to complete a more important action.

"Only the hand of the dead ... can pass the torch to the living..." she told him, lifting the sword to hand it to him. "I'll always love you ... my Daniel ...." She wondered if she'd ever spoken truer words, or done a greater deed, in the whole of her life. Then she wondered nothing at all.

 

~ * * * ~

As Jack watched, feeling helpless, the light went out of Vala's eyes, and the sword began to glow. Her head lolled towards him and her hand fell lifelessly to her breast.

" _No!_ " Daniel cried, shaking her, eyes wide in disbelief and horror. " _Vala_!!" Daniel lay her against the ground, tilted her heard back, and shared his breath with her. Once. Twice. He moved on to compressions.

Beside Jack, Sam stifled a sob against Jack's chest. Jack felt his own eyes burn, his lips tight as his held Sam to him, unable to tear his gaze away from the still form that had been so very ... _alive_ , just moments before. He wasn't a stranger to losing friends in battle, but Daniel ... his heart broke for the man who had once again found and then lost love because of the Stargate. Sometimes he wondered if Jackson's life wouldn’t have been better off if they had never found it.

 _No,_ he decided, feeling Sam's hot tears soak into his shirt. _"Better to have loved and lost," and all that._

~ * * * ~

Vala found herself sitting in clothes similar to those she'd worn in the Ori galaxy, and shuddered, despite the heat of the warm, sunny field she lay in. She sat up, then jumped a little when she caught sight of Merlin, leaning heavily on a staff just a few feet in front of her.

"Ugh, not another test!" she moaned.

"No, not another test," Merlin told her, smiling.

"Oh ... am ... is this ... aren't I dead?"

"Yup."

"Oh." She peered at him. "Are _you_ dead? I thought you were Ascended ...."

He raised his brows in amusement. "I _am_ Ascended."

"Oh .... Am _I_?"

"No. Though you probably _will_ be, _some_ day," he added, and held a hand out to her. She took it warily. "For now, though, you only have a little while to be dead; then, you're going back to the living."

She blinked. "But I thought ... the _price_ —"

"And who said that paying a price was necessarily a _bad_ thing? Dying has a way of changing you — for good or ill is up to you, but you'll never be quite who you were. And besides, it's not like you got off _easy_ — dying wasn't exactly _fun_ , now, _was_ it? At any rate, it's not as if I'm demanding _payment_ , exactly. It's just that this is the only place where the other Ascended can't reach us, where they can't stop me from 'interfering', as they call it. I mean, I'm not about to leave the instructions to the weapon just lying about, nor would I tell them to just _anyone_. Soooo, I put a fail-safe in the weapon. Anyone who couldn’t be trusted to use the weapon fairly would be unable to draw the sword from the stone ... but anyone whose intentions were pure and just would be sent _here_."

Deciding not to point out that she'd never been accused of being pure and just before, she asked, "But ... the _warning_? ... The whole 'Only the hand of the dead can pass the torch to the living' thing ...?"

"Heh, you young ones take everything too literally, you know that? Besides, death and life are rather relative from the perspective of the Ascended," he added with a shrug. "You'll be passing the torch of knowledge that you gain here, in death, on to _yourself_ , in life. Or, if you prefer, you can think of Ascension as death, and that _I_ , the dead, am passing the torch of insight to you. Look, the point was to get _someone_ brave and selfless to come here, all right?" She blushed with surprise and a little pride; those were two traits she hadn't generally been attributed with! "Now stop asking questions for a minute and just _listen_ ...."

 

~ * * * ~

"Jackson," Mitchell said quietly, voice thick with his own grief as Daniel felt the man's hand on his shoulder. "Jackson, it's over, man. It's ... it's been eight minutes ...."

Daniel had gone back to compressions, but at Mitchell's touch he slowed, then stopped. He felt Mitchell's hand slide free of his shoulder, heard the man walk over to where Sam, Jack, and Teal'c stood. He didn’t feel anything, didn’t hear anything. He wished more than anything to feel Vala wrapping her arms possessively around him like she so often did despite how he would push her away every time, hear her say any of a thousand annoying things she was so want to say no matter how often he told her to shut the hell up. He'd give anything to hear her call him "My Daniel" again.

His eyes fell on the glowing steel.

 _Anything_.

The universe wasn't worth her death. If his choices were living free _without_ her and living enslaved _with_ her ....

He grabbed up the sword and moved for the dais.

Teal'c grabbed him from behind, enfolding him in a steel grip.

" _Let me **go** , Teal'c_! Don’t make me lose her like I lost _Sha're_! YOU _OWE_ ME!"

Teal'c grip lessened ever so slightly, but only for a moment. "We do not know what will happen if you do this, DanielJackson. It is possible the device will only kill you as well, and not bring ValaMalDoran back."

Daniel sagged in Teal'cs arms. "Don’t we owe her enough to _try_?" he pleaded.

It wasn't fair. How could he have gotten her back, again and again and again — even when he wanted nothing more than to be _rid_ of her in the beginning — only to lose her _now_? When he finally understood how much she _meant_ to him? How much they were _connected, **beyond**_ the Kor'Mak bracelets?

"What'd did I miss?" came a groggy but distinctly-feminine voice behind them.

Teal'c promptly dropped Daniel.

"Ooomph!" Vala cried as Daniel threw his arms tightly around her. "Hey, the recently-deceased needs some air, here!"

He pulled back, lips parted in an open-mouthed smile as he drank in the living, breathing (or at least attempting to breathe) sight of her.

~ * * * ~

Vala stared back, a bit surprised — and maybe a bit pleased — that he seemed to have been be so moved over the loss of her.

She was even _more_ surprised when, slipping his hand into her hair, he captured her lips — at first desperately, then, as the kiss drew on, more tenderly. She still couldn’t breathe, but she no longer cared.

Finally, he drew back, then rest his forehead against hers.

"Don't _ever_ scare me like that again," he whispered forcefully.

"Is that an order?" she asked, grinning.

"You betcha," Jack and Mitchell said in tandem.

~ FINIS ~

**Author's Note:**

> If you've enjoyed my writing, I invite you to explore my original fantasy storyverse, [Gaiankind](http://gaiankind.com)! You can even find Gaiankind stories for free [here](http://archiveofourown.org/tags/Gaiankind) on AO3!


End file.
